Comment on surely your hobby can't be that expensive
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours agoI think even that’s getting cheaper over the last couple years. Mid range guitars are getting premium features & qc out of Philippines and Indonesia is pretty solid, modelers are making a big collection of amps and pedals unnecessary for chasing tones. As long as you’re not a collector gathering signature serieses or looking at all the new releases giving yourself fomo it’s not too bad.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 16 hours ago
Oh, yeah, that’s what gave me the bug. I bought a Monoprice strat copy for $99, including a padded gig bag and shipping, and I couldn’t believe how nice it was. I still have it, still play it often.
I got a Harley Benton Les Paul copy for $158 (with $85 shipping from Germany, ouch), and loved it. Then I visited Nashville, and went to the Gibson Garage, where they had the exact same guitar, with all Gibson branding, of course. Both guitars are a copy of a popular style/color from the early 70s, neither is an original model. Yet, while my copy was $158, the Gibson version was $6700! You could argue that the Gibson hardware makes a huge difference, but even if I replaced all the hardware with Gibson branded stuff, it would still be only about $1000. You could try to argue that the QC is better on the Gibson, but $6700 better? I don’t think so, especially since my HB is perfect. I’ve had it a couple of years now, and I’ve never found any flaw in it at all. You could never rationalize that the Gibson copy is thousands of dollars better than my HB copy.
I’m a big cheapskate. I love to find old beat up guitars, fix them, clean them, restring them, set them up, play them for a while, then sell them. Or keep them if I like it enough.
It’s fun, but the money pit is bottomless.
n4ch1sm0@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Gibsons’ been lacking so much lately anyway; they charge so much for a guitar that can barely stay in tune (at least for the one’s in the last decade). Brands like Harley Benton have been squashing them for dirt cheap for the last few years.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
Yeah, they’ve been coasting on their legacy for a long time.